“I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them,” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told attendees at a legal conference in Dallas, Texas, recently.

The justice was referring, of course, to the now infamous ‘leak’ of a draft majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that purports to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 opinion that concocted a constitutional “right” to abortion.

Thomas explained that the high court operates in a climate of mutual trust, where votes and drafts of opinions being circulated are sacrosanct, and only the final opinions become public. With few exceptions along the way in its history, the court has operated well, based on that trust and secrecy.

“Now that trust or that belief is gone forever,” the justice said.

“And when you lose that trust,” he continued, “especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder.”

“It’s a kind of infidelity,” the 73-year-old justice added.

It’s not just the Supreme Court where the climate of trust has been eroded. It affects all branches of government, Thomas explained.

It’s the middle of May, yet activist corporations are already falling all over themselves in anticipation of June’s “LGBT Pride Month.”

Mattel’s Fisher Price touted the release of a RuPaul Little People toy package, saying, “RuPaul is a pop-culture icon who has been hailed as the best-dressed queen on TV and is coming to life in a whole new way for lip-syncing, runway-slaying fans.”

Entertainment Weekly breathlessly gushed, “The classic toy brand’s new Little People Collector RuPaul package features three figurines that shrink RuPaul down to widdle-pill size, with the three-inch statuettes honoring Mama Ru’s Drag Race outfits both in and out of drag.”

Oreo, produced by Nabisco, announced “a limited edition OREO Pride Pack which acts as a canvas for allies to share their words of pride.” The package has “loving words of support sourced from real allies,” along with a “a writable space that gives the opportunity for everyone to add their own words of allyship.”

For $5.79, you get about 30 cookies, each stamped with the word “Proud.” Ground shipping costs an additional $9.95, bringing the cost of the package to almost 16 bucks. Expedited ($29.95) and warm weather ($18.50) shipping bump up the price even more.

Marvel Comics recently revealed a new “transgender mutant superhero,” named Shela Sexton, in its upcoming Marvel’s Voices: Pride (2022) #1.

Certainly, the effectual spread of the Gospel is of paramount importance to all Christians. But to read numerous articles in elite publications today, one would think the precious Gospel of Jesus Christ is being dangerously crippled by the nastiness of current partisan politics. Just this week, The New York Times warned in a lengthy article “a ‘Seismic Shift’ Fractures Evangelicals” because of politics and The Atlantic, which seems to run such doomsaying articles about every six months, explains “How Politics Poisoned the Evangelical Church.”

If these folks are to be believed, Christians involved in politics is the Gospel’s greatest hinderance today. But what these journalists fail to understand is their neighborly “the sky is falling” warning to faithful Christians is nothing new at all. Nor is it helpful or particularly insightful. Discerning readers know this to be true. The reasons are many.

First, the elite press has been predictably apoplectic for decades now about any and every movement of biblical Christians’ involvement in politics. Thus, their warnings today ring hollow. Just as we are now supposed to believe that this new thing called “Ultra Maga” is far worse than “Original Maga” which we were told for years was literally Nazi-like, the implication is that we should reject the “poisoned” faith-based politics of today and pine wistfully for the good ol’ days of the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition.

Continuing to cry wolf has consequences.